The National Association of Japanese Canadians (NAJC) is encouraging community leaders to learn about Indigenous reconciliation at a Vancouver workshop.

Reconciliation Canada is hosting a dialogue workshop on April 27th to educate community members about Canadian history, including the history of the Indian residential school system.

The intent behind the association's support is unification, says NAJC VP Lorene Oikawa.

"If we are united, we can focus on the positives of diversity and inclusion. We remain committed to fight discrimination. This is what makes Canada a better country."

Oikawa says the workshop is a positive opportunity for education and a way for allies to support different groups.

Understanding what reconciliation means and learning about First Nations history is one of the basic blocks to inclusion, she says.

According to Reconciliation Canada's 2015 impact report: "The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada report characterized the colonial period and the treatment of Indigenous people as cultural genocide."

The report said the majority of Canadians agreed it was cultural genocide.

Our volunteer news team (Michael, Deanna and I) made a short video using a mix of basic equipment:

The event was organized by the local Surfrider Foundation chapter and about 20 volunteers came out on a cloudy Saturday morning to pick up trash. One of the volunteers, Lindsay Siu, brought her two children, who seem fascinated with the activity.

The day was not just about removing trash, but about citizen science. Volunteers measured and recorded each type of garbage they found. Surfrider Vancouver chair Matthew Unger said they send the data to universities, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Organization (NOAA) and local government to report on the conditions at our local beaches.

Watch this if you need a visual (but don't watch it if you get squeamish at the sight of blood) :

The other major Surfrider Vancouver project is the Hold on to Your Butt campaign, which encourages the public to recycle their cigarette butts. The City of Vancouver also purchased cigarette butt recycling containers and placed them around the city as part of a pilot project in 2013. The Province reported that an evaluation of that pilot project will guide future recycling efforts.

Unger said cigarette butts are not biodegradable and accumulate toxins, which are ingested by fish, displacing food with a “toxic compound.”

There are signs posted at Vancouver's beaches explaining that smoking is not allowed but we saw a random stranger smoking on the beach during the cleanup. He's in the video if you watch closely. I've seen people having campfires on the beach and drinking alcoholic beverages at any time of day – two other activities that the city put under a "please don't" list.

Rules or no rules, Unger said any cans or bottles left on the beach get picked up because they have value. He would like to see a deposit return program for cigarette butts to encourage people to recycle them.

Beach cleanup volunteer Stephanie Reimer said she tries to limit her consumption of products.

"Realizing how much garbage does end up on the beach..It gives you an awareness in your everyday life about how much plastic you use," she said.

Michael and Bryan once again sit down to talk video games. This time, Edrick is joining the duo to talk about E3 related things. Was the Electronic Entertainment Expo exciting? was is turrable? What were some of the greatest things?

Supplies are ready to be sent to about 2,000 Syrian refugees across the province after volunteers assembled kits at a warehouse in Burnaby.

GlobalMedic volunteer Brett Simms said the kits are distributed across the province to about 300 to 400 Syrian refugee families in the Lower Mainland, 50 on Vancouver Island and 25 to 30 families in smaller communities. Leftover kits will be saved for refugees that have yet to arrive.

Simms said GlobalMedic is currently active in Iraq, Serbia and Greece. Roughly 25 people were helping at the warehouse, some coming from as far away as Kamloops and Vancouver Island.

He said their efforts are an example of Canadian's “generosity of spirit."

“We've got people like charitable organizations, businesses, individuals, recent families, all coming together to do something like this is just amazing to me but it's something Canada is well-known for around the world,” Simms said.

Mary Loblaw, a teacher from Port Moody said she's volunteering because it's for a good cause.

“We have many refugees in the Lower Mainland and some coming in to the school district I work in. They manage on very little and so things like this are helpful to them,” Loblaw said.

According to government statistics, Canada has accepted 26,506 Syrian refugees as of April 8, 2016. Syria is in the midst of an ongoing civil war.

Mercy Corps states that half of Syria's pre-war population of over 11 million people has either been killed or has fled the country.

The majority of kits are distributed by Muslim Food Bank and Community Services volunteers and GlobalMedic volunteers.

Muslim Food Bank director Mainu Ahmed said their organization works in partnership with the Immigrant Services Society of BC.

“We help with the social aspects so we basically provide food on arrival, toiletry packs, etc, to help them integrate quickly into mainstream society,” Ahmed said.

In addition to basic supplies, The Muslim Food Bank runs a community caseworker program, connects newcomers with jobs and offers volunteer-run conversational English groups across the province.

Ahmed said housing is an issue because many of the Syrian newcomers have large families.

“Given the amount of money they receive as a subsistence allowance it's not sufficient to actually get affordable housing, so that has been a big challenge,” he said.

There are some really good success stories Ahmed added, such as the family of 12 that he heard just moved into a house.

The Muslim Food Bank assisted refugees that arrived in Canada two days before the end of 2015 to file their tax returns and it has provided ISSBC with a cultural sensitivity training program that will be rolled out in the more remote areas of the province.

He motioned towards his group of volunteers, “they come from totally different parts of Syria. They met here and they've become friends. They support each other's families.”

Ahmed said one of the women in the group came here with her mother and brother. He said she recently had a baby but her husband is missing.

“She's come a long way from when I saw her the first day, when she was just lying on the bed and didn't want to see the world to now where she's out and she's actually volunteering,” he said.

At last minute we decided to cover Godfrey's birthday a little differently this year.

For those that may not know, the event was split this year, with the main organizers setting up on Vancouver's Sunset beach, while there are those that still choose the Vancouver Art Gallery as a venue.

This year, we went to the beach. With a photo gallery, you probably won't find anywhere else.

There has been some of us at NewsFriends that often dip into the world of video games. While this is a site primarily focused on telling news in our own special little way, Sometimes we just can't help ourselves.

Michael Lylyk and Bryan McGovern chat up some of their favourite games of the year, and look a little ahead to the future.

About 300 competitors displayed their karate skills at the 16th Annual Sato Cup Invitational Karate Tournament last month. While some came from other provinces such as Quebec and Saskatchewan, others came from outside the country.

The tournament welcomed competitors from Japan, India, the Philippines and Grand Cayman Islands.

The Catfé is a new cafe that opened up in Vancouver. What sets it apart from the regular café is that it’s home to a bunch of cats, but if you’re in this city and have been paying attention to the media, you would have already known that by now. The cat café is not anything new, as it’s already set up shop in Japan, Taiwan, Germany, France and Mexico. In the case of Canada it already has spots in Montreal, Quebec and Guelph, Ontario. But now one is set up here on the west coast, and it’s just as busy as you would expect.

Though, one of the other News Friends had booked time to be inside the Catfé I decided to come by as a bystander (or bysitter?) and experience how busy this place is on opening day.

A girl is huddled under an umbrella in the pouring rain on the steps of the Vancouver Art Gallery, holding a poster of a smiling man that reads, 'Guillaume was killed yesterday at the Bataclan'.

The Bataclan is a concert hall in Paris and one of the locations attacked by gunmen on November 13, along with several cafes. Suicide bombs were also detonated close to France's national stadium. Media reported 129 people have died, 352 were injured and 99 were critically injured with the Islamic State reported to have claimed responsibility for the attacks.

Vigils were held in Vancouver, as well as other major cities across Canada and around the world.

The Beaty Biodiversity Museum at the University of British Columbia (UBC) hosted a Mushroom Walk, led by Botany Professor Mary Berbee, on Saturday.

Berbee said a lot of people are curious about whether they can eat mushrooms but there is no general rule as to which mushrooms are poisonous or safe for human consumption.

"You have to get to know the species of mushroom one at a time and become really familiar with them," she said.

She said one way of identifying mushrooms is by the colour of their spores. To create a spore print, a mushroom cap is placed gill side down for about six hours until the spores are released from the gills.

About 500 people attended a rally in support of eight First Nations, four environmental groups and one labour group challenging the Federal Government’s approval of Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline.

The crowd gathered at the corner of Howe and Georgia Street in Vancouver on Thursday October 1, the first day of a six-day hearing in the Federal Court of Appeal.

“The struggle involves all the nations and everything from direct action to court cases to political action,” said Bob Ages during the rally.

Ages is a member of the Council of Canadians and the Unist’ot’en Solidarity Brigade, which is “physically blocking pipeline crews” working on Chevron’s Pacific Trails Pipeline (PTP), which crosses Wet’suwet’en traditional territory in Northern BC.

At Centre A, a contemporary art gallery, three artists showcased a piece of Vancouver history rarely told by mainstream media and academia at Centre A, a contemporary art gallery in Chinatown.

Naveen Girn, curator of "GOONJ! Being Brown in Chinatown," said South Asian history in Vancouver extends over a hundred of years. The exhibit focuses on illuminating forgotten stories through three main artworks. "Goonj" means echo in Hindi.

Graffiti artist Nisha Kaur Sembi painted a mural about the history of the Ghadhar Party, an early 20th century Pacific Coast movement for Indian Independence.

Toronto-based Jagdeep Raina mined Canada's federal archives and refashioned photos in charcoal and paint. His drawings assert the South Asian presence on the streets.

Yule Ken Lum, with denim jeans, created a portrait of a Sikh man who is repeatedly cropped out of a historical photograph depicting the aftermath of the Ant-Asian Race Riots of 1907.

Friday was an interesting time. While we were hunting down a story about skin flaps, there also happened to be a concert going on at the same time.

One Direction? Have you heard of them? I've been told they're a bit of a big deal.

Taking inspiration from a recent podcast about Photography contracts during live performances and the ways publications have been getting around them, I felt inspired.

Gaining knowledge of a colleague going into the One Direction concert to have a fun evening, I requested that any pictures she takes to send them my way. Though the quality of the photos may not be the best, I was sure that my artistic ability would be able to spruce them up.

Within this short time it's been turned into gold and replaced by a log, but is not back and bigger than ever. After the cut is a short Q&A we had with the creator of the turd (Stu Garret) that was supposed to be used for our original video. But since it no longer has a home, we decided to share it with our audience, under the cut:

For the first time in Vancouver, a theatrical dance performance is getting the audience involved in the action.

The 605 Collective and Theatre Replacement have teamed up to bring dance and theatre together called The Sensationalists. The two want to bring an immersive experience for the audience. The play will revolve around the audience, said director Maiko Yamamoto.

“It uses the space in a non-traditional way. The Audience [will be] placed inside of the action,” Yamamoto said.

It was 605 Collective’s Josh Martin’s idea to try out a choreographing play. Martin and Yamamoto didn’t know what story of the play was going to be at first, but as the production went on they learned about autonomous sensory meridian response. Which characterized as a tingling sensation that goes up and down the spine, it’s exactly what they wanted for the audience to experience.

“[You can] have the tingle [feeling from] listening to music, you have this moment of free-song, this energy [in your body is the tingling feeling],” Yamamoto said.

When the audience gets up and becomes part of the performance, the performers won’t be expecting any dancing experience from the crowd.

“No one needs to know anything,” Martin said. “We [just] want them to feel something. We want them to get a sense of what it feels like to do the movement and be dancing with a group of people and to feel the music.”

Martin’s said he’s excited about the interaction show. His group routinely perform in front of a crowd, but it’s never engaging. This time around it won’t be show and tell anymore. But he does want people to be natural during the interaction.

“We want them to feel that they’re part of [the play] opposed to [watching],” Martin said. “Be yourself and try to get your own experience out of it.”

The interaction won’t be in the whole show. It will transition back to a traditional theatre seating.

Josh Martin and Lisa Gelley practicing

Josh Martin, one of the creative leads in 605 Collective

“It’s a very constructed transfer [from part one to part two],” Yamamoto said.

The play will have two different kinds of seating plans, one involves the interaction and the other will not.